Family, Friends and fun times

It was with great relief that we cleared UK immigration and realised that Emily's passport was genuine, the holiday could finally begin.  The first leg of our hols were in Kent and John and Jo met us at the airport.  Sam and John went off, with minimal luggage to collect a hire car leaving Jo and I to squeeze three children and various suitcases in to one car! They had an uneventful journey home quietly chatting while we had a screaming baby and a vomiting Oliver!  However we finally made it back, got the children to bed and relaxed with a glass of wine.

Aside from introducing Emily to her family and seeing any friends we could, our aim was to have a thoroughly British holiday.   We began with an attempted walk to Pooh Bridge but, after following John's advice and dressing for dry weather, we abandoned the walk when the rain soaked us.

Luckily we were able to retreat to The Gallipot to dry off and eat delicious food. Luckily the rain didn't last and the following day the children rediscovered Harry's old zip line ove the pond.  We also managed an unseasonal BBQ with the Hawkridge/Grant/Clark clan.

We all managed to spend lots of time outside and William and Oliver even managed to fit in some farm work with Grandpa and Granny.

A brief catch up with the Magee's was squeezed in with the added bonus of Sophie and Libby.  We were treated to yummy sausages, eggs and bacon. The girls and boys all played well together and saying goodbye was hard but made easier knowing it won't be long before they are in India!!

Continuing with our British holiday theme we met up with Sue and Suresh and managed to fit in a trip to the farm, a castle and lots of time outside.

Food followed a similar vein with lots of sausages, fish pie and, of course, steak and kidney pie.

Although on our final night in Kent we steered away from British and alleviated our Chinese homesickness with crispy duck and pancakes!  

At the end of our first week we headed to Guildford for the next leg of the holiday.

The weather continued to be kind and we spent lots of time outside in the garden and going out for walks.  There was even a game of rugby but the less said about that the better!  A gathering of the Smiths, Smiths and Jarmans was fun and William and Oliver enjoyed the time with their youngest cousins.

A visit to the Rowlands was squeezed in and was far too brief but good to catch up and the children slotted back together as easily as ever. We didn't seem to get any photos - too much wine and chat!

Towards the end of our visit we needed to go to London to get Sam a new passport (we love doing passports!).  It was decided that we should combine it with a visit to the science museum and a meeting with Anna, Harry, George and Ellie.  Amazingly Meeta managed to head down to London to catch up with us too.  The boys were aware that we were seeing Meeta but didn't realise that 

Ria was coming.  The look on their faces was brilliant as they caught sight of her.  The nine months apart vanished as they happily explored the museum together.

The end of the holiday loomed too quickly but I managed to take my mother out one evening to check out her new local and the boys enjoyed watching Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (a Smith favourite) with my father.  We also managed Guildford castle and, of course, a trip to costa coffee!

The two weeks went by pretty quickly and the goodbyes were as hard as ever but we are now looking forward to next summer.